An OB/Gyn doctor living the Paleo lifestyle

At the beginning of every cycle, I go into the fertility doctors’ office for an ultrasound to make sure there aren’t any ovarian cysts before starting the medications. If a cyst is present, then they have me go to the lab to check an estradiol level to see if it’s a functional cyst, meaning a hormonally active one. This is a pain because I’ve already gone to the lab and had blood drawn to confirm a negative pregnancy test. So I go back for a second blood draw.

In the past, I’d had a cyst once but the estradiol level was low, so I was able to continue with the medication. This month, the estradiol level was elevated, so they recommended that I skip the letrozole. I guess it must be from the hormonal activity of the cyst, but I had abnormal bleeding this month. After my period was supposed to end, I kept spotting.

Since we went camping, I didn’t do the ovulation test for a couple days, and I think I must have missed the LH surge (positive test) during that time, because my spotting increased to full flow bleeding around that time. It was like having a second period- joy! The little twinges of pain on the right side that I’d been having went away, so hopefully that means that the cyst resolved with ovulation.

Since we missed out on using the medications this cycle, I feel like time keeps passing, and yet another month is going by without me conceiving. My IVF date in late November is quickly approaching. Also, because I’m scheduled on a particular week, if my own cycle doesn’t match up, then they’ll put me on birth control pills beforehand to get the timing right. That means that we may not be able to try on our own the month before.

So really, I’m running out of opportunities to conceive on my own and am pretty much waiting for the IVF. Initially, the scheduled IVF date seemed so far away, so I was hoping we’d get lucky and conceive on the medications prior to that. Now it looks quite likely that I’ll end up doing the IVF. Which is fine, because the benefit of IVF is that hopefully we’ll end up with better quality embryos that take, as opposed to ending up with another miscarriage. But it’s hard not to be impatient either way. WZW is about to turn 3 yo, and we’re approaching two years of trying to conceive. The clock keeps ticking…